The Forming of Destiny and Life after Death

Schmidt Number: S-3168

On-line since: 19th January, 2004

LECTURE 6

LECTURE ON THE POEM OF OLAF ÅSTESON

THE DARKNESS OF THE PRESENT-DAY SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE LACK OF TRUTH
IN OUR THINKING

Berlin, 21st December, 1915.

We shall begin to-day by studying a Northern poem that we considered
in this group some time ago. The whole content of this poem is
connected with Christmas and the Christmas season. It treats of the
Legend of Olaf Åsteson and contains the fact that Olaf Åsteson, a
legendary person, passed the thirteen days between Christmas and the
Day of Epiphany in a very unusual way. And we are reminded thereby how
within the world of these Sagas there lives the perception of the
primitive clairvoyance formerly existing in humanity. The story is the
following: Olaf Åsteson reaches a church door one Christmas Eve and
falls into a sort of sleep-like condition. And during these thirteen
nights he experiences the secrets of the spiritual world; he
experiences them in his own way, as a simple primitive child of
nature. We know that during these days when in a sense the deepest
outer darkness prevails over the earth, when the growth of vegetation
is at its lowest ebb, when, in a sense, everything external in
physical earth-life is at a standstill, that the earth-soul awakens
and attains its fullest waking consciousness. Now, if a human soul
mingles its spiritual nature with what the spirit of the earth then
experiences, it can, if it still retains the primitive conditions of
nature, rise to a vision of the spiritual world such as humanity as a
whole must gradually re-acquire through its own efforts. We then see
how this Olaf Åsteson actually experiences what we are able to bring
from out of the spiritual world. For whether he says Brooksvalin and
we say Kamaloka or soul-world and spiritual world, or whether we use
different images to those of the Saga, is of no consequence. The chief
thing is that we should perceive how humanity has proceeded in its
soul evolution from an original primitive clairvoyance, from a state
of union with the spiritual world, and that this had to be lost so
that man could acquire that thinking, that conscious standing in the
world through which he had to pass, and from and beyond which he must
again develop a higher perception of the spiritual world. I might say
that this spiritual world which the primitive clairvoyance has
forsaken is the same in which the evolved perception again lives; but
man has passed through a condition which now causes him to find his
way into this spiritual world in a different manner. It is important
to develop the feeling that in reality the inner spiritual psychic
development of a spiritual psychic being is connected with the
transformation of the earth at the different seasons of the year; a
psychic spiritual being is connected with the earth as a man's soul
with his physical being. And anyone who merely regards the earth as
the geologists do, as that which the usual Natural Science of to-day
in its materialistic attitude so easily explains, knows as much of
this earth as one man knows of another, of whom he is given a model in
papier-maché, and which is not filled with all that the soul
pours into the external nature of man. External Science really only
gives us a mere papier-maché image of the earth. And he who
cannot become conscious that a psychic distinction prevails between
the winter and summer conditions of the earth are like a man who sees
no difference between waking and sleeping. Those great beings of
nature in whom we live, undergo states of spiritual transformations as
does man himself, who is a microcosmic copy of the great macrocosm.
Nature and the experiencing of it, the spiritual living with it has a
certain significance. And he who can evoke a consciousness that just
during these thirteen nights something transpires in the soul of the
earth which man can also experience, will have found one of the ways
through which man can live more and more into the spiritual world. The
feeling for this experience of what is lived through in the great
Cosmic existence has been lost to humanity to-day. We hardly know any
more of the difference between winter and summer than that in winter
the lamps must be lit earlier, and that it is cold in winter and warm
in summer. In earlier times humanity really lived together with
nature, and expressed this by relating in pictorial fashion how beings
traversed the land while the snow fell, and passed through the country
when the storm raged but of this in its deepest sense the present-day
materialistic mind of man understands nothing. Yet man may grow into
this frame of mind again in the deepest sense, if he turns to what the
old Sagas still relate, especially in as profound a myth as that of
Olaf Åsteson, which shows in such a beautiful way how a simple
primitive man, while losing his physical consciousness grows into the
clear light of spiritual vision. We shall now bring this Saga before
our souls, this Saga which belongs to bygone centuries; which has been
lost, and has now been recorded again from the Folk-memories. It is
one of the most beautiful of the Northern Sagas, for it speaks in a
wonderful way of profound, Cosmic mysteries  in so far as the
union of the human soul with the world-soul is a Cosmic mystery.

(The Legend was here recited.)

As we are able to meet here to-day, we may perhaps speak of a few
things which may be useful to some of us when we look back to what
have learnt through Spiritual Science in the course of the year. We
know and this has lately been emphasised even in our public lectures
 that at the back of what is visible to external perception as
external man, there lies a spiritual kernel of man's being which in a
sense is composed of two members. We have learnt to know the one as
that which meets our spiritual vision on undergoing the experience
usually designated as the Approach to the Gate of Death;
the other member of the inner life appears before the human soul when
we become aware that in all the experiences of our will there is an
inner spectator, an onlooker, who is always present. Thus we can say:
human thought, if we deepen it through meditation, shows us that in
man there is always present in the innermost of his own spiritual
being a something which, as regards the external physical body, works
at the destruction of the human organism, a destruction which finally
ends in death. We know from the considerations already put forward
that the actual force employed in thinking is not of a constructive
nature, but is rather, in a sense, destructive. Through our power of
dying, through our so developing our organism in our life between
birth and death that it can fall into decay and dissipate into the
Cosmic elements, we are enabled to create the organ by means of which
we develop thought, the noblest flower of physical human existence.
But in the depths of a man's life between birth and death there is a
kind of life-germ for the future which is especially adapted to
progress through the gates of death; it is that which develops in the
currents of Will and which can be regarded as the
spectator already characterised. It must continually be
urged that what brings spiritual vision to the soul of man is not
something which first develops through the spiritual vision itself,
but something which is always present; it is always there, only man in
our present epoch should not see it. This may be said, that one ought
not to see it. For the evolution of the spiritual life has made much
progress, especially in the last decades, so that anyone who really
gives himself up to what in our materialistic age is designated
the spiritual life spreads a veil over that which lives in
his inner nature. In our present age those concepts and ideas are
chiefly developed which are best calculated to conceal what is present
spiritually in man. In order to strengthen ourselves aright for our
special task, we who follow Spiritual Science may point, just at this
significant season, to the particularly dark side of present-day
spiritual life, which must indeed exist, just as the darkness in
external nature must also exist; but which we must perceive and of the
existence of which we must become aware. We are living through a
relatively dark period of civilisation in regard to the spiritual
life. We need not constantly repeat that in no wise do we undervalue
the enormous conquests of which  in this epoch of darkness,
mankind is so proud. Nevertheless with regard to spiritual things the
fact remains that those concepts and ideas which are created in our
epoch, absolutely conceal that which lives in the souls of men 
especially from those who immerse themselves most earnestly in these
ideas. In reference to this the following may be mentioned. Our epoch
is specially proud of its clear thinking, acquired through its
important scientific training. Our age is very proud of itself. Of
course not so proud as to lead all men to want to think a great deal:
no, its pride does not lead to that. But it results in this, that
people say: In our epoch we must think a great deal if we want
to know anything of the spiritual world. To do the necessary
thinking oneself is very difficult. But that is the task of the
theologians. They can ruminate on these things. Thus, our epoch is
supposed to be very highly evolved and is exalted above the dark age
of belief in authority; and so we must listen to the theologians, who
are able to think about spiritual things. Our epoch has also
progressed with respect to the concept of right and wrong, of good and
evil. Our epoch is the epoch of thought. But in spite of this advance
from the belief in authority, it has not led each man to think more
deeply on right and wrong; the lawyers do that. And therefore because
we have got beyond the epoch of belief in authority we must leave it
to the enlightened lawyers to think over what is good and evil, right
or wrong. And with reference to bodily conditions, to bodily cures,
because we do not know what is healthy or unhealthy in this epoch
which desires to be so free from belief in authority, we go to the
doctors. This could be exemplified in all domains. Our epoch is not
much inclined to despair, as was Faust, thus:

I have studied, alas! PhilosophyAnd Jurisprudence and Medicine too.And saddest of all Theology!With ardent labour through and through!And here I stick, as wise, poor fool!As when my steps first turned to school.

One thing results: our age actually refuses to know anything of the
things which perplexed Faust, but desires to know all the more of
those things already clearly cognised in the many different
departments in which the weal and woe of humanity are decided. Our
epoch is so terribly proud of its thinking, that those who have
brought themselves to read a little Philosophy in the course of their
lives  I will not go so far as to say they have read Kant, but
merely some commentary on Kant  are now convinced that anyone
who asserts anything about the spiritual world in the sense of
Spiritual Science, sins against the undeniable facts established by
Kant. It has often been said that the whole work of the Nineteenth
Century has been directed to developing human thought and
investigating it by means of critical knowledge. And many to-day call
themselves critical thinkers who have only taken in a
little. Many men to-day, for instance, assert that man's knowledge is
limited, for he perceives the outer world through his senses; yet
these senses can merely yield what they produce through themselves.
Thus man perceives the world by its effects on his senses, therefore
he cannot get behind the things of the world, for he can never
transcend the limit of his senses! He can only receive pictures of
reality. And many, speaking from the depths of their philosophy, say:
The human soul has only pictures of the world; and thus it
can never arrive at the Thing in Itself. One may thus
compare what we obtain through our senses, our eyes, ears, etc. 
to pictures in a mirror. Certainly, if a mirror is there and throws
back pictures, the image of one man, the image of a second man, etc.,
and we behold them, we have then a world of images. Then come the
philosophers, and say: Just as anyone who sees a man, or two in
a mirror, in a reflected image, has a picture world of his own, and as
he does not behold the Thing in Itself, the man, but
merely his image, so we really have only images of the whole external
world, when the rays of light and colour strike the eye, and the waves
of air strike our ear, we have only images. All are images! Our
critical epoch has resulted in this: that man forms nothing but images
in his soul, and can never through these images reach to the
Thing in Itself.

Infinite sagacity (I now speak in full earnestness) has been applied
by Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century in order to prove that man
merely has images and can never reach the Thing in Itself.
What is really the origin of this critical resignation, of this
passivity as regards the limitations of our knowledge,
when we thus discover the image nature of our perception? Whence does
it originate? It arises from the fact that in many ways the thought of
our epoch, of our enlightened age, is devoid of truth, and short
sighted. Our thinking throws out an idea in a pedantic fashion and
cannot get beyond it. It holds up this idea like a wooden mannequin
and can no longer find anything which is not given by the mannequin.
It is almost incredible how rigid thought has become in our time. I
shall just make clear to you, by means of the same comparison of the
reflected image, the whole story of this image nature of our
perception, and of what the so-called critical progressive thought has
produced. It is quite a correct premise that the world, as man has it
here in sense existence, is only here because it impresses itself on
man and throws up images in his soul. And it is well that humanity
should have reached this point, through the critical philosophy of
Kant. We are well able to say: The images we have of the outer world
are such that we can compare them with images of the two men in a
mirror. Thus, we have a mirror and two men stand before it. We do not
see the men but their pictures. We thus have images of the world
through what our souls know of the outer world. We have images which
we compare with the two men whose reflected pictures we behold. But
some one who had never seen men, but only images, would be able to
philosophise thus: I know nothing of the men, but their lifeless
images. Thus conclude the critical philosophers. And with this
conclusion they remain satisfied. They would find themselves refuted
in their own being, if they could get a little further away from their
mannequin of thought, out of the dead into the living thought. For, if
I am in front of a mirror in which are rejected two men, and I see in
it that the one strikes the other so that he is wounded, I should be a
fool to say: The one mirror-image has struck the other.
For I no longer see merely the image in the mirror, but through the
image I see real events. I have nothing but the image, but I see an
absolutely real occurrence through the mirror image. And I should be a
fool to believe that that only took place in the mirror. Thus:
critical philosophy seizes the one thought that we have to deal with
images, but not the other thought, that these images express the facts
of something living. And if we grasp these images in a living way,
they give more than pictures, for they point to the Thing in
Itself, which is the real outer world.

Can one still say that the people who produce this Critical
Philosophy really think? Thought is to a great extent lacking in
our time. It is really at a stand-still. And we have stood still at
this Criticising of Thought. I have often mentioned that
this criticism, this critical philosophy, has even progressed in our
culture, and that a man making a noble effort (they are all honourable
men and their efforts entirely praiseworthy) has produced a certain
Criticism of Language. Fritz Mauthner has written a
Criticism of Language in three thick volumes, and even a
philosophical dictionary written from this standpoint, in two still
thicker volumes. And Mauthner, himself a journalist, has a whole
journalistic train of followers, who naturally regard it as a great
work. And in our time, in which Belief in Authority is
supposed to be of no importance, very many who have reached that
standpoint, consider it a significant work, as does even the press for
which Fritz Mauthner wrote; for to-day there exists no belief in
authority!

Now, Mauthner finally explains how man actually forms nouns,
adjectives, etc., but says they all signify nothing real. In the outer
world one does not experience what words signify. Man so lives himself
into words that we really do not have his thoughts and soul images,
but merely words, words, words. Humanity finds itself entangled in the
language which gives him his vocabulary. And because he is accustomed
to attach himself to the language, he only reaches the symbol of
things as given in words! Now, that is supposed to be something very
significant. And if one reads these three volumes by Mauthner, and if
you have something to reproach yourself with, it is a good penance to
read half of them! Then one finds that their author is profoundly
convinced  indeed one cannot put it otherwise  that he is
cleverer than all the clever men of his time. Of course a man who
judges of his own book is naturally cleverer than the others. So Fritz
Mauthner finally concludes that man has nothing but signs, signs,
signs. Indeed, he goes still further. He goes so far as to say the
following: Man has eyes, ears, sense of touch, etc., that is, a
collection of sense organs. And in Mauthner's opinion man might have
not only organs of sight, hearing, touch, taste, but quite different
senses. For instance, he might have another sense besides the eye. He
would then perceive the world quite differently with this sense from
what he does by receiving pictures through the eyes. Then much would
exist for him which is not perceptible to the ordinary man. And now
this critical thinker feels a little mystically inclined, and says:
The immeasurable fullness of the world is conveyed to us only
through our senses. And he calls these senses Accidental
Senses, because in his opinion it is a Cosmic accident that we
should have just these very senses. If we had other senses the world
would appear differently. Thus it is best to say: We have
accidental senses! Thus an accidental world! Yet he says the
world is immeasurable!  It sounds beautiful. One of the
followers of Fritz Mauthner has written a brochure called
Scepticism and Mysticism. In this special attention is drawn to
the fact that man may even become a mystic in the depths of his soul,
when he no longer believes what these accidental senses can give. A
beautiful sentence is given us on the twelfth page of this book.

The world pours down on us; through the few miserable openings
of our accidental senses we take in what we can grasp, and fasten it
to our old vocabulary, since we have nothing else to retain it with.
But the world streams further, our language also streams on further,
only not in the same direction, but according to the accident of
language, which is subject to no laws.

Another philosophy! What does it want to do? It says: The world is
immeasurable, but we have merely a number of accidental senses into
which the world streams. What do we do with what thus streams in? What
do we do according to this gentleman's doctrine of accidents? We
remind ourselves of what he calls memory. We fasten that on to the
words transmitted to us through our language, and the language then
streams on again further. Thus what streams to us from the
immeasurable Cosmic Being through our accidental senses, we speak of
in our word-symbols. A sagacious thought. I repeat it in all
earnestness. It is a sagacious thought. One must be a clever man in
our age to think thus. And it can really be said of these people that
not only are they all honourable and praiseworthy; they are also
remarkable thinkers. But they are entangled in the thought of
our epoch, and have no will to transcend it.

I have experienced a kind of Christmas sadness  one cannot call
it joy for it has become grief, through having once more to consider
certain of these matters in this connection. And I have written down a
thought, formed exactly after the style of the above thinker who wrote
what has just been read. I have applied exactly the same thought to
another object with the following results: Goethe's genius is
poured on to the paper. With the few miserable forms of its accidental
letters the paper takes up what it can, and lets itself express what
it can take up with its old store of letters, since there is nothing
else to express it with. But Goethe's genius streams on further, the
writing on the paper also streams on further, not only in the same
direction, but according to the accidents in which letters can group
themselves, being subject to no laws. It is exactly the same
thought, and due regard has been given to each single word. If one
maintains that: the immeasurable Cosmos pours down to us, and we
take it up with our few accidental senses, as well as we are able, and
fix it into our vocabulary: the Cosmos then streams on further, while
language streams in another direction, according to the accidents of
the history of language, and thus human perception flows on.
Then this is exactly the same thought as if one said: Goethe's
genius flows through the twenty-three accidental letters, because the
paper can only receive things in that way. But Goethe's genius is
never within them, for it is immeasurable. The accidental letters
cannot take that up. They stream on further. What is on the paper also
streams on further and groups itself according to the formations
possible to the letters, the laws of which cannot be perceived.
If now these extremely clever gentlemen conclude from such
suppositions that what comes to us in the world is merely the result
of accidental senses, that we can never get to what really underlies
the world in its depths  that is the same as thinking that in
reality one can never reach that which lived in the genius of Goethe.
For they make it clear  that of this genius nothing exists but
the grouping of twenty-three accidental letters. Nothing else is
there! These gentlemen have a precisely similar thought, only they are
not aware of it. And there is just as much sense in saying: One
can never know anything at all of Goethe's genius, for you see that
nothing of it can flow to you. You can have nothing but what the
different grouping of twenty-three accidental signs can give.
There is just as much sense in this as in the discussion on the Cosmos
that these men bring forth, concerning the possibility or
impossibility of Cosmic knowledge. There is just as much sense in this
whole train of thought  which is not the thinking of simpletons
 but the thinking of those who are really the clever men of
to-day, but who do not wish to raise themselves above the thought of
our epoch.

The matter has, however, really another aspect. We must be clear that
this manner of thinking, which meets us in the example in which it
determines the limitations of knowledge, is our own mode of thought in
the present age. It prevails, and is to be found everywhere to-day.
And whether you read this or that apparently philosophical book
intended to solve the great riddles of the universe  or disguise
them  or whether you read the newspaper, this style of thinking
is everywhere prevalent. Its methods dominate the world. We drink it
in to-day with our morning coffee. More and more daily journals appear
with such opinions. And in the whole web of our social life this same
manner of thought prevails. I have attempted to expose this thinking
in its philosophical development, but it could also be traced in those
thoughts which one evolves in every possible relation in life, in
everything man reflects upon, this thinking prevails to-day. And this
is the cause of man's inability to evolve the will to experience in
its reality what, for example, Spiritual Science seeks to give. For
Spiritual Science is not incomprehensible to true thinking. But what
it has to give must naturally always remain incomprehensible to those
men who are built after the pattern of Fritz Mauthner. And the
majority of men are fashioned thus to-day. Our contemporary science is
absolutely permeated through and through with this thinking. Nothing
is here implied against the significance and the great achievements of
Science. That is not the point, the essential question is how the soul
lives in our age, in our present civilisation. Our age is utterly
lacking in the power of fluidic thought, unable really to follow what
must be followed if these thoughts are to grasp what Spiritual Science
has to impart.

Now we can ask ourselves: How does it come about that such a
book as Gustav Landauer's Scepticism and Mysticism can be
written, when it simply oozes with self-complacency? I might say
that the reader himself beams with the whole tone of self-satisfaction
within it, as one does on reading Mauthner's Criticism of
Language or the article in the Philosophical Dictionary.
How is this? One does not learn how this comes about by following the
thinking. I can imagine very clever men reading such a book and
saying: That is a thoroughly clever man! They would be
right, for Mauthner is indeed a clever man. But that is not the point;
for cleverness expresses itself by a man forming in a certain logical
manner those ideas of which he is capable, turning them one after the
other into nonsense, and reconstructing them again in some fashion.
One may be very clever in some branch or other, and possess a really
right sort of cleverness, but if one enters a life which is permeated
with the consciousness of spiritual knowledge, then with each step
there develops such a relation to the world that one has the feeling:
You must go further and further. You must perfect your ideas
each day. You must develop the belief that your ideas can lead you
further and further. One has the feeling that the cleverness of
the man who had written such a book is of the following nature:
I am clever and through my cleverness I have accomplished
something definite. I will now write that in a book. That which I now
am I shall inscribe in a book, for I am clever on this the 21st of
December, 1915. The book must be finished and will reproduce my
cleverness. One who really knows never has that feeling. He has
the feeling of a continual evolution, of an eternal necessity to
refine one's ideas, and to evolve higher. And he certainly no longer
has the feeling: On this 21st of December, 1915, I am clever;
now, through my cleverness I shall write a book that will be finished
in the course of months or years. For if he has written a book
he truly does not look back to the cleverness which he had when he
began to write it, but through the book he acquires the feeling:
How little I have really accomplished in the matter and how
necessary it is for me to evolve further what I have written.
This journeying along the path of knowledge, this constant
inner labour, is almost entirely unknown to our materialistic age; it
believes it knows it, but in reality it knows it no longer. And the
deepest reason for this can be clothed in the words: These men
are so excessively vain. Man is tremendously vain, for, as I
said, such a book really oozes with vanity. It is clever, but terribly
vain. The humility, the modesty, that results from such a path of
knowledge as has been laid down, is utterly lacking to these men. It
must be utterly lacking when a man unconditionally ascribes cleverness
to himself on this 21st December, 1915. Humility must be lacking. Now
you will say: These people must be stupid if they regard
themselves as clever. But they do not consider themselves stupid
with the surface consciousness, but with the subconsciousness. They
never learn to distinguish between the truth which lives in the
subconsciousness, and what they ascribe to themselves on the surface,
and thus it is the Luciferic nature which really urges the men of
to-day to desire to be clever, to attain a definite standpoint of
cleverness, and from this point to consider and judge everything. But
when a man bears this Luciferic nature within him, then, while he
beholds the external world with Lucifer he is led to Ahriman. He then
naturally sees this outer world materialistically in our epoch, quite
naturally he looks at it in a materialistic manner. For when a man
with Lucifer in his nature begins to contemplate the world, he then
meets Ahriman. For these two seek each other out in man's intercourse
with this world. Therefore such radically vain thinking never reaches
the possibility of this conviction, if I use a word, I naturally
use merely a symbol for that which the word signifies. Mauthner
made the great discovery that no substantives exist. There are none.
They are no reality. Of course not. We grasp certain phenomena, think
of them rightly for a moment and call them substantives. Certainly
substantives are not reality: neither are adjectives. That is quite
understood. That is all true: but now if I join a substantive and an
adjective together, if I bring speech into movement, it then expresses
reality. Then what the image represents transcends the image. Single
words are no reality in themselves, we do not, however, speak in
single words, but in groups of words. And in these we have an
immediate presence within the reality. Three volumes have to be
written to-day, and a two-volumed dictionary added, in order to
expound all these things to man by means of thoughts of infinite
cleverness, which simply overlook the fact that although single words
are only symbols, the connecting of several into groups is
nevertheless not merely symbolical, but forms part of the reality.
Infinite wisdom, infinite cleverness is to-day used to prove the
greatest errors.

Now, finally, that such errors should be manifest in a criticism of
speech or even in a criticism of thought, is not in itself so bad, but
the same kind of thought expressed in these errors  in these
very intelligent and clever mistakes  lives in the whole thought
of our present-day humanity. If we do but grasp the task which is
comprised in our spiritual movement, it really forms part of it that
we should become conscious of the necessity for those who wish to be
Spiritual Scientists, to look at their era in the right way, and
really place themselves in the right attitude to it. So that really, I
might say: the practical side of our spiritually scientific movement
demands that we should seek to transcend that thinking which answers
to the above description, and not follow along those lines of thought,
but try to alter them. We shall immediately approach the understanding
of Spiritual Science with the simplicity of children if we only remove
those hindrances which have entered the spiritual life of the
civilisation of our present age through the stiffened and petrified
forms of thought. Everywhere we should lay aside in our own souls that
belief in authority which to-day appears under the mask of freedom.
That should form part of the practical life of our Spiritual Science.
And it will become more and more necessary that there should be at
least a few people who really see the facts as they are and as they
have been characterised to-day  and not only see them, but take
them in real earnestness all through life. This is the essential. One
need not display this externally, but much can be done if only a small
number of persons will organise their lives  in whatever
position they may occupy, in accordance with these explanations.

We can see in one definite respect how absolutely our age demands that
we should again make our thinking alive. Let us briefly place before
our souls something that we have often considered. In the beginning of
our era that Being whom we have frequently characterised, the Christ
Being, took on the life of a human being and united Himself with the
earth aura. Through this there was given to the earth, for the first
time, the right purpose for its further evolution, after it had been
lost through the Luciferic temptation. The Event of Golgotha took
place. The Evangelists, who were seers, though for the most part seers
in the old style, have described this Event. Paul also described this
Mystery of Golgotha;  Paul saw the Christ spiritually through
the event of Damascus. His seership was different from that of the
Evangelists. As a result of these descriptions a number of men united
their souls with the Christ-Event. Through this connection of single
individuals with the Christ-Event Christianity was spread abroad. At
first it lived beneath the earth; so that in reality the following
picture may continually appear in our souls: In ancient Rome, beneath
the earth, those who had grasped the Mystery of Golgotha with their
souls, maintained their Divine Service. Above, the civilisation and
culture of the age, then at its summit, was carried on. Several
centuries passed; that which was formerly carried on below in the
catacombs, concealed and despised, now fills the world. And the
civilisation of that time, the old Roman intellectual culture has
disappeared. Christianity is spread abroad. But now the time has come
when men have begun to think, when they have become clever, and free
from authority. Thinkers have appeared who have examined the
Evangelists. Honourable and clever thinkers: they are all worthy of
honour. They have concluded that there is no historical testimony in
the Gospels. They have studied them for decades, with earnest and
critical labour, and they have come to the conclusion that there is no
actual historical testimony in the Gospels, that Christ Jesus never
lived at all. Nothing is to be said against this critical labour: it
is industrious. Whoever knows it, knows of its industry and of its
cleverness. There is no reason to despise lightly this critical
wisdom. But what does it imply? What is at the bottom of it all? This:
that humanity does not in the least see the point of importance!
Christ Jesus did not intend to make things so easy for men that
subsequent historians should arise and comfortably verify His
existence on the earth as simply and easily as the existence of
Frederick the Great may be verified. Christ did not wish to make
things so easy as that for men  nor even would it have been
right for Him to do so. As true as is the fact that this critical
labour on the Gospels is clever and industrious, so true also is it
that the existence of Christ may never be proved in that way, for that
would be a materialistic proof. In everything that man can prove in
external fashion, Ahriman plays a part. But Ahriman may never meddle
with the proof as to Christ. Therefore there exists no historical
proof. Humanity will have to recognise this: although Christ lived on
the earth, yet He must be found through inner recognition, not through
historical documents. The Christ-Event must come to humanity in a
spiritual manner, and therefore no materialistic investigations of
truth, nothing materialistic may intervene in this.

The most important event of the earth evolution can never be proved in
a materialistic manner. It is as if through Cosmic history humanity
were told: Your materialistic proofs, that which you still desire
above all in your materialistic age, is only of value for what exists
in the field of matter. For the spiritual you should not and may not
have materialistic proof. Thus those may even be right who destroy the
old historical documents. Just in reference to the Christ-Event it
must be understood in our epoch that one can only come to the Christ
in a spiritual way. He will never truly be found by external methods.
We may be told that Christ exists, but to find Him really is only
possible in a spiritual manner. It is important to consider that in
the Christ-Event we have an occurrence concerning which all who will
not admit of spiritual knowledge must live in error. It is
extraordinary that certain people go wild when one utters what I have
just said: that the Christ can be known by spiritual means  thus
that which is historical can be recognised spiritually  certain
people affirm that it really is not possible; no matter who says it,
it cannot be true! I have repeatedly drawn your attention to this
fact.

Now, our worthy Anthroposophical members still let many things leak
out here and there in unsuitable places because they do not always
retain this in their hearts, nor give forth in the right way what they
have in their hearts. For instance, a person was told  this
reached him in a special form  (this is certainly a personal
remark, but perhaps I may make it this once), he was told that I had
said that personally, as regards my youthful development, I did not
begin with the Bible, but started from Natural Science, and that I
considered it as of special importance that I had adopted this
spiritual path, and had been really convinced of the inner truth of
what stands in the Bible before I had ever read it; for I was then
certain of it when I had read the Bible externally; that I had thus
proved in myself that the contents of the Bible can be found in a
spiritual manner before finding it subsequently in an external manner.

This has no value because of its personal character, but it may serve
as an illustration. Now that came in an unseemly way to a man who
could not understand that anything of the sort is possible, for he
(pardon the word) is a theologian. He could not understand it. Since
he wanted to make this matter clear in a lecture to his audience he
did so in the following way. He read in a book that I once assisted at
Mass. (These assistants are boys who give external help at the Mass.)
Then he said to himself: whoever assisted at Mass cannot
possibly have been ignorant of the Bible. He overlooks the fact that
he learnt to know the Bible there. Later on these things come back to
him, from his Bible knowledge. Yes but there is indeed a plan in
all this. In the first place the whole story is untrue, but people
to-day do not object to quoting a fact which is untrue. In the second
place, the assistants at Mass never learn the Bible but the Mass-book,
which has nothing to do with the Bible. But the essential is to attend
to this: the man could not conceive that a spiritual relation exists,
he could only imagine that one comes through the letters of the
alphabet, to the spiritual hanging on to them. It is very important
for us to know these things and to have practical knowledge of them.
For our spiritual movement will never be able to thrive until we
really  not merely externally but in the very depths of our soul
 find the courage to enter into everything connected with the
whole meaning and significance of our conception of the world. And
with reference to this uniting oneself with the spiritual world a
critical situation has really arisen just in our time. The very men
who regard themselves as the most enlightened feel themselves least
united with the spiritual world. This is not stated as a reproach or
criticism but as a fact. It is, therefore, especially important in our
time to arouse an inner understanding for such significant Cosmic
symbols as meet us in everything which surrounds the mystery of
Christmas. For this can unite itself very deeply with a man's nature
without the help of letters or learning. We must be able to make the
Christmas Mystery alive in every situation in life, particularly in
our own soul.

While we awaken this Mystery in our souls we look up and say:
Christmas reminds us of the descent of Christ Jesus on to the
earth plane, and of the rebirth of that in man which was lost to him
through the Luciferic temptation. This rebirth occurs in
different stages. One stage is that within which we ourselves stand.
That which for the sake of further evolution had to be lost  the
feeling in the human heart of union with the spiritual world:
the birth of Christ within us is only another word for it
 that has to be born again. Just that, which we desire and ever
strive for, is intimately connected with this Christmas Mystery. And
we should not merely regard this Christmas Mystery as that day of the
year on which we fix up our Christmas tree, and, beholding it, take
into ourselves all sorts of edification, but we should look upon it as
something present in our whole existence, appearing to us in all that
surrounds us.

As a symbol I should like in conclusion to present something which a
remarkable poet, who died many years ago, wrote of his feeling about
Christmas.

Our Church celebrates various Festivals which penetrate our
hearts. One can hardly conceive anything more lovable than Whitsuntide
or more earnest and holy than Easter. The sadness and melancholy of
Passion week and the solemnity of that Sunday accompany us through
life. The Church celebrates one of the most beautiful Festivals, the
Festival of Christmas, almost in mid-winter, during the longest nights
and shortest days, when the Sun shines obliquely across our land, and
snow covers the plains. As in many countries the day before the
Festival of the Birth of our Lord is called the Christmas Eve, with us
it is called the Holy Evening; the following day is the Holy Day and
the night intervening the Sacred Eve. The Catholic Church celebrates
Christmas Day, the Day of the Birth of the Saviour, with the greatest
solemnity. In most regions the hour of midnight is sacred to the hour
of the Birth of the Lord, and kept with impressive nocturnal
solemnity, to which the bells call one through the quiet solemn air of
the dark mid-winter night, and to which the inhabitants go, with
lanterns along the well-known paths, from the snow mountains and
through the bare forests, hurrying through the orchards to the church,
which with its lighted windows dominates the wooded village with the
peasants' houses (Adalbert Stifter, Berg Kristall). He then
describes what the Christ Festival is to the children and further, how
in the old and isolated village there lived a cobbler who took a wife
out of the neighbouring village, not out of his own; how the children
of this couple learnt to know Christmas as was customary there. That
is; someone said to them The Holy Christ has brought you this
gift, and when they were sufficiently tired of the presents,
they were put to bed, very tired, and did not hear the midnight bells.
These children had thus never yet heard the midnight bells. Now they
often visited the neighbouring village. As they grew up and were able
to go out alone they visited their grandmother there. The grandmother
was especially fond of the children, as is often the case.
Grandparents are often more devoted to the children than the parents.
The grandmother liked to have the children with her, as she was too
frail to go out. One Christmas Eve, which promised to be fine, the
children were sent over to their grandmother. The children went over
in the morning and were to return in the afternoon to follow the
custom of the country, calling at the different villages, and were
then to find the Christmas tree at home in the evening. But the day
turned out different from what was expected. The children were
overtaken by a terrible snowstorm. They wandered over the mountains,
lost their way, and in the midst of a dreadful snowstorm they reached
a trackless country.

What the children went through is very beautifully described; how
during the night they saw a phenomenon of nature. It is desirable to
read you the passage, for one cannot relate it as beautifully as it is
described there. Each word is really important. They reached an ice
field on a glacier. They heard behind them the crackling of the
glacier in the night. You may imagine what an impression that makes on
the children. The story continues:

Even before their very eyes something began to develop. As the
children sat thus a pale light blossomed in the sky, in the centre
underneath the stars, and formed a delicate arch through them. It had
a greenish shimmer which moved gently downwards. But the arch became
clearer and clearer until the stars withdrew and faded away before it.
It even sent a reflection into other regions of the sky, a pale green
light, which moved and coated gently among the stars. Then arose
sheaves of various lights above the arch, like the spikes of a crown,
and they flamed. The neighbouring spaces of the heavens were flooded
with light, gently scintillating, and traversing long stretches of the
heavens in delicate quiverings. Had the storm-substance of
the sky so expanded through the snowfall that it flowed out in these
silent glorious streams of light, or was it some other cause in
unfathomable nature? Gradually the whole became fainter and fainter,
the sheaves becoming extinguished first, until slowly and
imperceptibly it all became fainter and nothing remained in the sky
but the hosts of simple stars.

The children sat thus through the night. They heard nothing of the
bells beneath. They had only snow and ice around them in the mountains
and the stars and the phenomena of the night above them. The night
drew to a close. People grew anxious about them. The whole village set
out to find them. They were found and brought home. I can omit the
rest and merely say that the children were almost stiff with cold,
were put to bed and told that they should receive their Christmas
gifts later. The mother went to the children, which is related as
follows:

The children were confused by all this agitation. They had been
given something to eat and were put to bed. Towards evening, when they
recovered a little, while certain neighbours and friends gathered in
the sitting-room and spoke of the event, the mother went into the
bedroom and sat on Sanna's bed, caressing her. Then the little maid
said: Mother, while I sat on the mountain to-night, I saw the
Holy Christ.

This is a beautiful presentation. The children had grown up without
any instruction about the Christmas Festival. They had to pass
Christmas Eve in that terrible situation, up above on the mountains,
amid snow and ice, with only the stars above them, and this phenomenon
of nature. They were discovered, brought back to the house, and the
little maid said: Mother, I have seen the Holy Christ
to-night. I have seen the Holy Christ. Seen Him! She
had seen Him, so she said.

There lies a deeper meaning in this when it is said  as we have
continually emphasised in our Spiritual Science, that Christ is not
only to be found where we find Him, in the evolution of the earth
epoch, historically inserted into the beginning of our era, where
civilisation shows Him to us, but He is to be found everywhere!
Especially when we are confronted with the world at the most serious
moments of our life. We can surely find the Christ then. And we
ourselves, we spiritual disciples, as I might say, can find Him, if we
are only sufficiently convinced that all our efforts must be directed
to the rebirth of the spiritual in the development of mankind, and
that this spiritual, which must be born through a special activity of
the souls and hearts of men, is based on the foundation of what was
born into the earth's evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha. That
is something which we must realise at this season. If you can find
during the days of which we have spoken to-day, and which are now
approaching, a correct inner feeling of the evolving and weaving of
external earth existence in its similarity with the sleeping and
waking of man; if you can experience a deeper communion with external
events, you will then feel more and more the truth of the words
Christ is here. As He Himself said: I am with you
always, unto the end of the earth epochs!

And He is ever to be found, if we only seek Him. That thought should
strengthen us, and invigorate us at this Christmas Festival if we
celebrate it in this sense. Let us carry away these thoughts which may
help us to find that which we have to regard as the real content, the
real depth of our spiritual scientific efforts.

May we bring to this epoch of ours a soul so strengthened that we can
place ourselves in the right attitude to it, as we now desire to do.
Thus let us turn from the general consideration we have brought
forward concerning the spiritual world, to the feeling of
strengthening that can come to us from these considerations 
strengthening for our soul.

Now let us turn our attention to those on the fields where the great
events of our time are taking place:

Spirits ever watchful, Guardians of their souls! May your vibrations waftTo the Earth-men committed to your chargeOur souls' petitioning love:That, united with your power,Our prayer may helpfully radiateTo the souls it lovingly seeks!

And for those who in consequence of these events have already passed
thro' the gate of death:

Spirits ever watchful,Guardians of their soulsMay your vibrations waftTo the Men of the Spheres committed to your chargeOur souls' petitioning love:That, united with your power,Our prayer may helpfully radiateTo the souls it lovingly seeks!

And that Spirit whom we are seeking thro' the deepening of Spiritual
Science  the Spirit with whom we desire to unite, who descended
on to the Earth and passed thro' earthly Death for the salvation of
mankind, for the healing, progress and freedom of the Earth  may
He be at your side in all your difficult duties.